go ask alice
by fall from stars
Summary: CHAPTERED—The dizzy heights of that dreamed of world. chapter ii: high hopes. Rating to increase. [MarluxiaxNaminé]
1. lucy in the sky with diamonds

**A/N:** So I was thinking about how fun it would be to write something for KH along the lines of _Go Ask Alice_, everyone's favorite 1971 "nonfiction" diary about a fifteen-year-old girl who descends into the world of drugs. Add that with my fascination with MarluxiaxNamine, "stoner" music, and the need to learn how to write about drugs, and you get this. I know I didn't change the name, but you'll see why when I get there. Anyway, I hope I didn't butcher this, and since this is a chaptered thing, let's hope I can update it on time, yeah? (Chapters will be pretty short, just to make it easier for me to get them going.)

So the usual warnings for a story like this apply: please look out for/be aware of the following elements, drugs, sex, rock and roll, prostitution, statutory rape, kidnappings, teasing, hazing, and all that other good stuff that is out there in the wide world of Real Life. Leave a review if you can; constructive criticism on how I'm handling these topics is huge, since I haven't touched them in my own right; only read about them. On with the show!

**go ask alice  
one  
lucy in the sky with diamonds**

Today is Naminé's birthday.

She's fifteen.

The confetti swirls around her, the cake is chewed-swallowed-digested, the presents are unwrapped: new paints and sketchpads and things she needs to draw, but she can hardly summon up a thank you and it's all she can do to kiss her father and mother good night.

She's fifteen.

It's her birthday.

She should be so, so happy.

And she feels nothing.

---

It's been like that since she moved away from the house where she grew up. But her father had been offered a job he couldn't turn down, not when it was an opportunity for the girls to get a better education and to get further in life.

Naminé's elder-prettier-skinnier-brighter sister Kairi thrived in her new school. Once she found a place on the cheerleading team, she was unstoppable. And after she integrated herself into a group of Miss Teen USAs and jocks, nobody even remembered the other girl, the one in white Kairi used to be around with.

For Kairi, the world is sunshine and tangerine trees and marmalade skies; Namine only sees fog drifting in that never really leaves.

It got really hard after Kairi had to tell one of her new friends, in front of Naminé, that the girl in the white dress wasn't a friend, but was actually her own sister.

"Really?" he asked, this cheerful but forgetful boy named Tidus, his smile faltering, fading. "I really didn't know. I would've thought your sister would be a lot different. Sorry, Kai."

Because nobody really understood how anybody could be as quiet as Naminé was, or draw as much as she did, all the while refusing invitations out when Kairi's friends tried to accept her, too.

But she wasn't one of them. She knew it, and she didn't want their sympathy. She wanted to be accepted for herself, not for the blood she shared with Kairi.

She just kept drawing and drawing herself, happy, happy with new friends and new faces and new dreams to chase in the sky.

And when she sleeps, she dreams it's true, and wakes up with tears on her face.

---

She's so sick for home. She hates it at her new school, in her new place where nobody really gives a shit about her unless they're somehow connected to Kairi. She seems destined to fall away altogether, eating lunch on a toilet, fading into the white white walls whenever she sits in class.

Her grandparents are the ones to offer her a place in the guest-room in their house. She cries and cries because she's so happy, and though she tells her mom and dad and Kairi that she may be back before long, she hopes she'll be able to stay forever.

---

Under the jurisdiction of her grandparents, she's given free rein of her old hometown, allowed to go wherever she likes as long as she's home for meals, or calls beforehand so that no extra food is made for her. The town is hers to see, hers to remember.

And when she passes by the familiar street corners, people ask her if she's really home, if she's really Namine, and she smiles and says yes, yes it is.

_Yes_, she says, _I'm home_.

She spends her days trying on pretty dresses in tiny boutiques and browsing the CD aisles in the hopes of something new and working out to make her stomach go flat, the way it was as a child. But most of all, she draws things in the local park for the little kids who ask, and who sometimes even _pay_, for her to make a paper dream for them. She becomes known as the girl underneath the tangerine tree, the one who will draw just about anything you ask for.

And she couldn't be happier.

---


	2. high hopes

**go ask alice  
two  
high hopes**

She first meets him in the park where she's drawing another happy future for herself, one she'll hang up on the wall and hope for, one she knows she'll never really get.

He's in his twenties, with dark auburn hair and intense blue eyes, dressed in all black despite the weather, and she can hardly believe him, can hardly believe the situation at all.

She never gets attention from boys, much the less men, and she smoothes her skirt and throws her hair over her shoulder and smiles, really _smiles_, because she hopes her eyes may sparkle when she does.

He introduces himself to her.

His name's magic on its own.

_Marluxia_.

And when he says her name, when he says _Namin__é_ it's all she can do not to faint into his arms.

They sit underneath the tangerine tree and talk about the world, how it was when they were young, all magnets and miracles, and they watch the world spin on without them.

---

He starts visiting her at her tree, every day. She should take it as a bad sign: it means he doesn't have a job, her mother would say. Her father would add that no man his age shouldn't be able to contribute to society. And Kairi would call him nothing but a lazy bum.

But he brings her flowers, brings her pale roses and alyssum and carnations to match her skin, her hair, her dress. He calls her his garden girl and she falls asleep more than once in his arms, dreaming underneath the heavy summer sun.

And he holds and holds her, sometimes too tightly, but she doesn't notice, because as long as her body can breathe, nothing is wrong in the world.

---

She knows it's better to keep him a secret.

Even if he's the best thing to have happened to her, even if he makes her world better, her grass greener, her sun brighter, her sky bluer, even if he's her highest highest hope, nobody would ever ever understand.

Friends of hers keep trying to set her up with boys: there's Sora down the street with the pretty smile, but not as pretty as Marluxia's; there's Roxas with the bright blue eyes, but not as bright as Marluxia's; there's Zell with the rip-roaring laugh, but not as good a laugh as Marluxia's.

She tells them all she isn't looking for anyone.

(And why would she?

She already hopes that one day, Marluxia will choose her.)

---

It's only later that she notices it, when she lets herself see a little clearly again: he has dark circles under his eyes.

Are they new? Have they always been there?

She doesn't know. She's always seen him as perfect, flawless, an angel.

And she asks him if he has a place to stay, food to eat, a home and a family in it. It's really none of her business, but she can't help but worry.

He tells her that when you have Hearts, you don't need to worry about any of that.

She asks him what Hearts are.

He only smiles.

---

Hearts is the new drug sweeping the streets. It's everywhere and oh darling, if you want some, you better know just what you're getting into. Hearts isn't for the faint of heart, oh no, Hearts is something you're addicted to from the very start and Hearts is better than every goddamn drug you've ever had _combined_.

There's no describing it.

You have to feel it for yourself.

And that's how fucking good it is.

---

But Naminé thinks nothing of the Hearts, or Marluxia mentioning it.

Her mind is on other things.

She thinks a lot about what would happen if he kisses her. She wants it very badly, and she hopes he does too.

All she's seen is movie star kisses, so she hopes it's at a barbecue with firework smoke in the air and lights in her heart.

The way it always is. The way it's supposed to be.

It falls out differently.

---

She is in his arms, working on a drawing of a beach time scene a kid requested about twenty minutes ago.

The ball bounces on the page, all bright color and memory; the people sway with the wind, sleepwalking back again to their cars loaded with shovels and film and sunscreen; the sun shines bright on the sapphire sea, and she sighs because oh, the people in the picture are so, so happy.

She tells Marluxia this and feels slightly worried when his eyes go a little dark.

"And you aren't happy with me?" he asks, more curious than hurt.

"N-no," she stutters, "I am, it's just that I…"

He shoves his tongue past her lips to swallow the rest of her question. It hurts at first, hurts because Marluxia bites her lip and she can taste her own blood, but he's still kissing her and if a boy kisses a girl, then the girl is always very very happy, so she kisses him back, tangles their tongues together. She is sloppy, uncertain; he is stronger, more confident.

And when Marluxia pulls away he only smiles.

"You won't leave, Naminé," he says darkly. He doesn't phrase it as a question. She's very very scared.

"I-I won't, Marluxia," she says nervously. "I-I promise."

And she doesn't move, doesn't say a word for the rest of that day.

And Marluxia knows now that he doesn't need to do anything else.

He already has her.

---


End file.
